I drift in and out of sleep, and at some point I know I’m having a nightmare. I know The Beast is in that nightmare. I try to pull myself out of it, but I just can’t seem to escape my own mind. I’m back in my life with him. We’re at a dinner party. I’m in an emerald green gown that we’d fought over but I’d finally agreed to wear. I flash back to the moment I’d caved and agreed to just wear it. I’m sitting on the vanity in our bathroom in a robe.
“I put the dress I want you to wear on the bed.”
I look up to find Devin standing in the doorway, already in one of his six-thousand-dollar suits, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Good Looking to most, but no longer to me. “I saw it,” I say. “I’m not wearing that.”
“Why aren’t you wearing that?”
“My breasts will barely be covered.”
“Wear the dress.”
“I’m not wearing that.”
“I pay for everything and what do you do?” he snaps in that cutting tone that tells me the nastiness is about to flow like a river. “You go to school. And you can’t even wear a fucking dress for me?”
I rotate in my chair. “The neckline plunges to my belly button!” I shout.
“This is a fifty-million-dollar night. I need this deal to go down. Wear the damn dress.”
“My breasts are not going to make or break you.”
“Your tits work miracles on men, darlin’.” He walks over to me and pulls me to my feet, yanking open the front of the robe, his gaze raking over my nipples. “Should I suck them now or are you going to put the damn dress on?”
Anger burns through me and I start to tremble. I want to leave him right now. I hate him. “I’ll wear the dress.”
“Good girl,” he says, and damn it, he reaches down and pinches my nipple, and then twists it. “Make it fast.” He releases me and leaves.
The nightmare is over. It’s darkness now until it’s not. I fight it off again, but I’m back at the party.
We sit at the long, elegant table, with powerful people from around the world, all men. The women are all arm candy. China. Saudi Arabia. Mexico. Cuba. “You look beautiful,” Devin says, leaning over to whisper in my ear.
He means my breasts look beautiful, since my cleavage is on display and every man at the table keeps looking at my chest. “I hate that you made me wear this.”
“I wanted to show you off. I’m the envy of everyone here.”
I stab at some kind of potatoes and endure another hour at that table. Finally, we move to the den, which smells of old books, cigars, and cedar, perhaps from the bookshelves inset in the walls left and right. The guests work the room, all mingling, and I manage to detach myself from Devin to cross the thick cream-colored rug to stand by the fireplace and chat with several of the wives. A mistake, considering they too stare at my breasts, disdain in their eyes. Awkwardly, I ease away from them and scan for Devin only to find him missing, which allows me the excuse to exit to the gardens.
I step outside and weave down one of several paths, walking toward a gazebo, when Devin’s voice lifts in the air. “Make him go away,” he says.
“That’s a tall order,” the other man says. “It’s going to cost you.”
“How much?”
“A hundred grand and I get to fuck your wife.”
“Seventy-five, and if you do this right, you can fuck her ten ways to Sunday for all I care.”
“I can live with that deal. Can she?”
“She’ll do whatever the fuck I want. Make it look like an accident, or you’ll have an accident.”
“Carter Grant is as good as dead,” he says. “Get me my cash.”
I turn and start walking, all but running. I have to get away. I have to get away.
I open my eyes and sunlight beams into the room, while my cellphone buzzes against my belly. A cold spot forms in my chest. Oh God. How did I end up back in that memory? That was one month before Carter Grant died of a heart attack. I glance at the caller ID and quickly answer Asher’s call. “Hello.”
“Sierra,” he breathes out.
“You heard?”
“I just heard. He takes fucking pictures of his victims. You were right.”
“We think I’m right,” I say. “I’m pretty sure I’m right, which means the photos of the other victims are somewhere we’re missing.”
“Other victims. You’re convinced you’re the next.”
I think of Carter Grant, that cold spot in my chest all about guilt. “Asher, I knew what Devin was long before I left. On some level, I knew, and I have blood on my hands for it. People died. He killed them.”
“You are not to blame. He is and we’re going to get him.”
“Just like we have to get Ju-Ju.”
“Yes. And we will.”
“We, Asher. We. Please don’t tell me that I can’t help catch him. I can’t let anyone else die.”
“We means you and me. We happen when I get back. Do you understand?”
“I do and I’m not stupid. I need you to do this, whatever this ends up being, but I do think I need to go fill out my paperwork at the bar. Then Terrance has my address, and if Ju-Ju shows up there, Kara has a chance to catch him.”
“You wait until I get back.”
“I’ll go during the day and only with your people with me, and Ju-Ju nowhere near the bar.”
“I’m coming home tonight. You can go with me tomorrow. We, Sierra. You go with me. Do you understand me because I swear—”
“Whatever barbaric thing you’re about to say, don’t say it.”
“Sierra—”
“I’ll be waiting on you when you get here.”
“Tonight,” he says.
“Good.”
We disconnect and I can hear Devin’s voice in my head: She’ll do whatever the fuck I want.
No, I didn’t. But I did too little, too slow, in collecting data that may or may not destroy him. I can’t do too little again.